But his message — or at least the part of it that matters most for the direction of the economy and markets — wasn’t a simple one. There were no signs that Mr. Powell and his colleagues are hitting the recession panic button presumably hidden somewhere in the Marriner S. Eccles Building. But the choppy global economy and sell-off in stock and certain corporate debt markets has gotten Fed officials’ attention, and they’re open to the possibility that their optimism is misplaced. It’s a bit of a messy combination, which helps explain why stocks sold off as the news conference progressed. “There’s a fairly high degree of uncertainty about both the path and the destination of any further increases,” Mr. Powell said in the news conference.

Source: New York Times December 19, 2018 22:19 UTC